New build gaming PC will not boot?

[ZesPak]

grumbledoak said:

It never does. Hasn't been economically advantageous for decades. The only good reason to do it is because you want to.

Still, you are there now.

Really?? It saves hundreds when you want anything relatively high end.

[grumbledoak]

ZesPak said:

Really?? It saves hundreds when you want anything relatively high end.

Man maths. You doing the final assembly for free is worth maybe £25. And the retail cost of a windows license is (compared to Dell's $5)? Plus paying retail for every component, with VAT, no discount. Plus P&P. Do it 'cos you want to, or as a rite of passage thing. But don't kid yourself.

[x5x3]

grumbledoak said:

or as a rite of passage thing. But don't kid yourself.

well that was me - hoping the kids would learn about the process - epic fail all round really

[grumbledoak]

x5x3 said:

well that was me - hoping the kids would learn about the process - epic fail all round really

On the contrary. You can only learn from mistakes, so as a learning experience it could hardly have been better!

[ZesPak]

grumbledoak said:

ZesPak said:

Really?? It saves hundreds when you want anything relatively high end.

Man maths. You doing the final assembly for free is worth maybe £25. And the retail cost of a windows license is (compared to Dell's $5)? Plus paying retail for every component, with VAT, no discount. Plus P&P. Do it 'cos you want to, or as a rite of passage thing. But don't kid yourself.

I'm not kidding myself, if you want for example a half decent gaming system with a SSD and a £150 GPU, the main manufacturers will have a very high end computer for you that provides this, but no mid-end system with those two requirements.

Upgrades like SSD, better CPU, RAM, are often way overpriced on OEM sites.

There can be some sales had at, for example, Dell, but for a decent desktop (for example, with SSD) you'll be hard pressed to be cheaper off at an OEM.

Edit: Having them build by something like PC Specialist isn't the same as an OEM though. It's the same as ordering your components and then pay someone £50 to put them together (which is fine!).

[130R]

IMO if you want to stay at the top end of gaming you need to upgrade stuff all the time, so you end up "building" the PC yourself anyway. For example if I want to change my CPU and mobo I am not going to replace my entire system, I'll keep the PSU, GPUs, SSDs, case, etc. If you don't do this and buy a new system every time then you are definitely going to be spending considerably more money in the long run.

[fast_eddie]

I just had exactly the same symptoms with a dodgy stick of dual core ddr3 ram.
Sounds like it's quite common. Simple to diagnose if you have spare ram or just simply swap the sticks about.

[GrumpyTwig]

fast_eddie said:

I just had exactly the same symptoms with a dodgy stick of dual core ddr3 ram.
Sounds like it's quite common. Simple to diagnose if you have spare ram or just simply swap the sticks about.

Sometimes sorted just by giving them a decimal or two more voltage, though not really something you should have to do. (though some do specify it)

[ZesPak]

I still maintain that this would've helped locate the issue pretty easily.

ZesPak said:

This means there's no speaker on the MB, there should be a socket too attach a small speaker. You can find them in any old computer, something like this:



or this:



Check the manual where to attach it.
These will then give a series of beeps for the error code (sort of like morse), slot everything in and see what you get, then check the manual for what the code means. (eg three long beeps = memory problem)

Without this troubleshooting will be a problem.